Ironjawz AOS2 2018 Help Me Be Positive

[Rock Lobster]

Like many of you Ironjawz players I have spent the last year fighting epic battles with increasingly dangerous new armies being released that made victory harder and harder to come by. This has actually been quite enjoyable in some ways, taking every bit of skill to eke out a win and where a mistake results in being obliterated against most of the common order and chaos forces. Previously death was the only safe haven to take a win (other than other destruction forces) in a balanced and more forgiving game, and with their changes they have now too become an uphill battle.

It has been enjoyable, but that was premised on the reinforcements on the Horizon coming with AOS2 and that Ironjawz were going to get some points changes to allow us to mix up some new lists and compete with the upper middle tier armies. The new edition looks really cool, and although we perform very poorly in the 2 empahasized elements of the new edition, magic and free summoning, I liked the idea of getting more boyz on the table and being able to brave the withering hail of mortal wounds to fight against those fancy / smancy pretty boys.

There were a couple of things I was really hoping for just based on other armies releases and their points costs which I actually thought would be fair:

• 20 point reduction in wierdnob (1 spell caster that hurts himself was obviously overcosted)
• 20 point reduction in Ardboys and 30 point reduction in max unit size cost
• 10 point reduction in brutes (or perhaps discounts for max unit size)
• 10-20 point reduction in megaboss on foot
• 40 point reduction in mawkrusha
• Some reduction in Gordrak
• Ironfist remains the same price
• Gorefist same price as ironfist
• All other battalions (the pants ones) some significant savings
• Allow mega battalions to use a megaboss on foot instead of a the mawkrusha

These wouldn't be massive changes but would open a little list building interest, add another wizard or more boyz. As I imagine most of you are feeling right now, hightened expectations leads to crushing disappointment, here were the changes:

• Mawkrusha down 20
• Gordrakk down 60
• Ardboyz down 20 (but max unit size is identical price)

• ardfist + 30
• Bloodtoofs -20
• Brawl a non viable matched play battalion down 20.
• Brute Fist stayed the same
• Gorefist list down 30
• Ironfist +20
• Ironsunz stayed
• Weirdfist -20

Sadly my normal list actually did not change in points at all, I saved 20 on the mawkrusha and lost 20 on the ironfist. Now that the ironfist is so expensive I may need to consider swapping that for another 5 brutes and just accept being a slow target.

I am trying to stay positive for the new edition, I am just really sad that there are so few potential new options for list building with these changes - it feels like a missed opportunity to turn around the sad lack of attendance (and real lack of performance) of destruction at tournaments and of fun options for friendly games.

I am in funk, ready to buy and paint more Ironjawz for my list to make something cool and new, but now I realize I just keep using the stuff I was using except maybe drop something for a little more magic defence.

But I dont want to just wallow in negativity - I want some help finding some interesting ideas in this for stuff that might actually work I have not considered and I am missing.

One cool one I saw is you can finally do the bloodtoofs with Gordrak and Mawkrusha and 5 units of goregruntas, for that delightful +3 attacks charge on 3D6 with +2 to charge which is pretty cool, only shame is it is a 1 trick pony with very few characters or portential buffs, zero magic support etc. But there may be more I am missing.

Feel free to share grievances of losing what could have been great, but please lets put our collective minds to coming up with some ideas too.

[Rock Lobster]

The 20 man ardboyz units are looking better than they were and could operate with a bit of surprising speed on the charge. Not much point taking them to 20 man for the very small saving. You can get 20 with a warchanter for 400 points. They will keep the +1 bravery for a while and have +3 to charge with their banner. If you can get the cogs spell off that is +5 to charge which even without the iron fist is a decent minimum move and charge of 11" and a max of 21". If you get lucky and get a random destruction roll for that plus 6" one or two of your units could fly across the table and engage turn 1 if you were very lucky.

I think its worth having 1 unit of these, especially if they can be Waaghed up with double command abilities for +2 attacks. 100 attacks at 3+ / 3+ is potentially solid even without rend.

 

[Jgroover]

I'm struggling with the same thing. Was hoping for bigger drops. There are a few good things though:

• Chronomantic Cogs giving +2 move +2 charge is very nice.
• Multiple command abilities could be very strong with stacking Mighty Waaagh, Waaagh, and the Greenskins Waaagh.
• Golden Toof and Boss Skewer are much better, and there is a chance some of the malign spells and artefacts could be great fits.
• Less people are going to daisy chain long lines of cheap chaff roadblocks because of new battleshock rule so there is potential we could actually attack an important unit.

While more point drops would have made the army as a whole more competitive, I don't think any of our units are that overpriced on their own. I think the problem is that we don't have the basic tools that most armies have, all we have is melee hammers. I don't think we will ever be a good army until we get more units that allow us some range or some flying.

[Rock Lobster]

That analysis seems fair. I think the issue with the Ironjawz is also the very rigid list building restrictions, minimum points cost for an ironjawz marked unit that can go in battalions is 140pts where a nice 5 man ardboyz unit for 80 points would open up some real options. For the big battalions which allow you to try something new you are restricted to the 1 sub battalion of ironfist (big chunk of points and 1 way to play), you must take a mawkrusha so no foot boss (big chunk of points) and then you can just about fit the required 5 units in, but you cant have some units smaller than others to create variety since there isn't a cheap option.

Perhaps in the rules there may be more flexibility which for me would make my day and I can live with the points costs.

One thing I have been considering is the command trait that allows D3 units to get inspiring presence. That seems pretty solid given you can simply spend 1 command point in your battleshock phase and choose to save up to 3 units. That seems to really help those bigger units of brutes etc even if they are crawling across the table. With the artefact you mentioned before with the immunity to Battleshock you could make one of the big 15 man brute units and try and create an immune to battleshock deathstar.

 

[Malakree]

My hope now is that they have a bunch of warscroll changes they are going to release alongside aos2 which justifies it.

Armed to da Teef For ardboys.

When a model from this unit attacks you may pick one of it's weapon profiles to make that attack with. In addition whenever you assign a wound or mortal wound to a model in this unit roll a d6, on a 6 that wound is ignored.

 

If we get a bunch of those types of warscroll improvements it would really help.

[Zambo]

It’s becoming increasingly hard to maintain a positive outlook IJ were/are my attempt at buying into AoS after the end of WFB 

love the models, love the concept but with each new release they are becoming increasingly irrelevant! 

All the best IJ players seem to be deserting them they are clearly overcosted and warscrolls completely outdated! A massive miss from GW for the second year running , if this is all we are getting and the warscrolls don’t get major rewrites it shows a complete lack of interest in destruction as a faction ?I am ranting and end up eating my words. 

[heywoah_twitch]

I can't help you stay positive: I play beastclaw. What's our last final lifeline of hope?

The eluded to warscroll changes I guess?

[Vasshpit]

Consider the whispers on the winds of Ironjawz phase 2 in the near future. Perhaps changes were made/not made because of the impact new models/rules will have. 

[novakai]

I wasn't expecting big changes since they told us their weren't any, and I think people are overreacting until the they actually play a few games under a new editions. Sure it disappointing but until people actually play them out in tournaments and actual games you don't know if they are bad in the edition by guess working their power

[Carnith]

Thanks for copying my information I posted to /tg/ but I was wrong. Gordrakk only 40 point reduction. 

Overall my lists haven't changed much. I can fit in maybe in some points where I couldn't before. I'm still around the same area for wounds and unit counts, so not much changed there. Though, maybe with endless spells, I'll actually want to bring a weirdnob, and to be fair, realm spells may be extremely good that bringing a balewind isn't awful for the +1 spell, but as others point out, you could just bring a moon clan shaman instead for +2 cast and not dying to doubles.

[Rock Lobster]

12 minutes ago, carnith said:

Thanks for copying my information I posted to /tg/ but I was wrong. Gordrakk only 40 point reduction.

Ouch! Well I read the first part of your sentance and got excited that maybe there was a bigger drop, then the correction just then canceled out my super fun Bloodtoofs list with Gordrak and another Mawkrusha that just became a possibility. That is a bummer as that was the only new cool list I had seen. Its like the points were tweaked specifically to rule out being able to do anything cool and new.

Well, I dont think we are going to see a lot of warscroll changes sadly, they have indicated as much that its going to be hold as is. Might need to wait for a 2nd wave battletome but that is probably a year out at best with all the things that need to go in first.

Still a couple of tweaks for abilities lasting until the next hero phase may happen which would be a really solid change and make IJ still dangerous if charged. In fact if they make the Waaagh and warchanter buff last until the next hero phase that alone already improves the fighting strength of the army for all of those dead opponent turns where we get stomped. They can still win me over with that.

If that was done it might be cool using that ability to charge out of sequence on a 5+. If you get it, with the extra buffs you can potentially hijack the opponents charge phase, he will only fight with one unit and you may be able to wreck 2 more of his units (1 with smashing and bashing) before he gets to fight a 2nd time.

[Rock Lobster]

One thing to watch out for on magic items is any powerful magic items that do effects on a hit roll of a 6+. Our warchanters are allowed to stack which means we can potentially do some interesting things here that others can't do. I am hopeful I can at least find a couple of secret weapons to surprise people with.

[Carnith]

Good point. Was the sword of judgement from light just that if you hit a single 6+ you only did d6 MW and that was it? Cause they mention it being put on an assassin cause of the multiple hits it utilized. If that was something that could be used by a mawkrusha, would make it interesting on bosschoppa/riptooth varient to super buff him up, put a riptooth on there and watch as on a 4+ it does d6 MW.

[Rock Lobster]

4 minutes ago, carnith said:

Good point. Was the sword of judgement from light just that if you hit a single 6+ you only did d6 MW and that was it? Cause they mention it being put on an assassin cause of the multiple hits it utilized. If that was something that could be used by a mawkrusha, would make it interesting on bosschoppa/riptooth varient to super buff him up, put a riptooth on there and watch as on a 4+ it does d6 MW.

Or even more funny and surprising. 4 warchanters, all buff 1 warchanter with the sword of judgement, then do the Waaaghs for +2 attacks for 6 attacks base. All rolls a 2+ to hit = d6 mortal wounds and generate an extra attack that do d6 mortal wounds on a 2+. That 9d6 mortal wounds in combat on average. If you have some command trait for reroll 1s it’s probably 12d6 mortal wounds...

That ought to even the odds if he makes it anywhere near combat..,

[blueshirtman]

1 hour ago, heywoah_twitch said:

I can't help you stay positive: I play beastclaw. What's our last final lifeline of hope?

The eluded to warscroll changes I guess?

That, and maybe destruction is going to be a soup only faction. No IJ, no BCR, no gobbos. But a mix of all 2-3. 1 horn, 1-2 tusks, maybe some greenskins and gobos as battleline. Some IJ/Savage dudes for relics and wizards.

I cringe a bit inside when I think that the rule changes stay for all factions the way they are for a year. BCR didn't have much to lose, so it didn't lose anything, and the points drops are real. But some points changes seem odd.

I like the ogor changes though, maybe some sort of soup with them is going to work. Not sure the fire belly is good even with the points drop though. Butchers seem to have a lot more utilty still.

On the more happy side, my best friend got so angry today after seeing theKO changes, that it made me really warm and happy inside. Not a good thing to do, but it felt good

[Jgroover]

1 hour ago, heywoah_twitch said:

The eluded to warscroll changes I guess?

What are they if I may ask? Haven't heard anything. 

[Rock Lobster]

Sadly for BCR the points drops seem to be pushing towards the thundertusk spam, particularly since they ignore the character -1 hit rules. An alpha strike with 4 of those on a 2+ causing 6 auto mortal wounds means the list like legions of Nagash focused on lynchpin characters could see them blasted off the table turn 1.

[Aginor]

As someone playing against Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz regularly with my Seraphon I can only agree with y'all and wish you all the best.

I rarely lose against them, regardless of tactic, even with weaker experimental lists. They occasionally get me in trouble, but usually not.

I had expected some good point drops across the board and was puzzled why you did only get those few.

You guys need a buff. Hang in there!

[Rock Lobster]

Just now, Aginor said:

As someone playing against Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz regularly with my Seraphon I can only agree with y'all and wish you all the best.

I rarely lose against them, regardless of tactic, even with weaker experimental lists. They occasionally get me in trouble, but usually not.

I had expected some good point drops across the board and was puzzled why you did only get those few.

You guys need a buff. Hang in there!

Thanks Aginor, the response from the community has been really good in general towards the Ironjawz. It doesn't change the game but I have seen a lot of people that play other factions sharing the same sentiment rather than just declaring 'play better'.

The hope is that at least widely understood that by playing the IJ you are playing with a handicap, you can then feel proud if you finish in the top third of a tournament and maybe there is hope for a future buff from GW.

I have not played seraphon often, but I got a win against a really sub-optimal list once with my IJ list fully optimized and it was a real nail-biter of a game - its tough being green.

[novakai]

I heard IJ got third place in Triumph GT if it makes you feel any better.

[muggins]

I'm just a casual player but it's surprising to see the points changes. I am really excited for 2.0 and furiously painting the rest of my Ironjawz to bump up to 2k points but I don't want to just be blown off the board every time. I don't want to be a whiner but hopefully they listen to someone.

[Rock Lobster]

16 minutes ago, novakai said:

I heard IJ got third place in Triumph GT if it makes you feel any better.

That is awesome, it's great to see the underdog do so well. Hopefully can see a few of those.

[svnvaldez]

Just remember not to look at the changes in isolation. Also it looks to me that 20+ model missions have been removed to be just most models. That will have a big effect.

[RoyalDachshund]

17 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

Just remember not to look at the changes in isolation. Also it looks to me that 20+ model missions have been removed to be just most models. That will have a big effect.

This make things even worse considering "free" summoning for lots of factions . 

Units go down, battalions goes up. In the end IJ will land on the same position in matched play - army for enthusiast 

[svnvaldez]

This list is 2k and I think its super solid:

 

Allegiance: Ironjawz

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)

Battleline
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
10 x Orruk Ardboys (180)
3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)

Battalions
Weirdfist (200)

Scenery
Balewind Vortex (100)

Total: 2160 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 124